Six Months Later...

A little more than six months after the hurricanes, we still have reminders of the carnage around us.  Our son, Russ, is about to move back into his home as the contractors will finish up shortly, remodeling his home following a large tree falling through his roof.  We still look around at broken branches ("widow makers") high up in our live oak trees - reminders of the storm.  We are blessed, though.  Many people lost their homes and livelihoods.  

This weekend we wanted to incinerate a big reminder of Laura and Delta that we walk by every single day on the way to the barn.  The "burn pile."  After the storm, we hauled all the branches, limbs, and assorted sticks to the pasture and stacked them in a big, long windrow.  This weekend we started the fire to bid farewell to the one of the last remaining vestiges of tropical wrath still on our property.

Buckwheat the billy goat with his long goatee looks on, as does Belle, our livestock guardian dog.  We separated the long windrow into an individual pile.  Lighting the whole thing up would burn our pecan trees to the east and our newly planted tomatoes to the west.  As the fire consumed the branches, we would toss more on, being careful not to let it get too high.

It didn't take long until the entire pile was burned down to a mere fraction of its original size.  In the photo below, the pile originally stretched almost to the t-post in the foreground.  Now there is lots more room to walk, roll out hay bales, and much less hiding places for hens to lay their eggs.  These new hens are crafty.  We'll discover 'hidden nests' after searching around when we don't collect as many eggs in the nest boxes.

We weren't done with fires or smoke just yet.  As the fire smoldered and smoked, we were about to start another fire.  First, we seasoned up one of the briskets from one of our Jersey bulls with a rub we like.

I started my charcoal chimney fire starter (an easy way to start charcoal without lighter fluid).

Put the brisket on the smoker...

And watched and patiently waited for 6 hours while the brisket smoked at around 250 degrees.  Our Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker does a great job.  It requires monitoring, though, to ensure your temperature stays somewhere between 210 - 250 degrees.  This is easily accomplished by opening or closing the air vents and tossing a few more chunks of pecan or live oak wood in on occasion.

We used cut up chunks of pecan branches and live oak branches we lost in the storms to flavor the brisket.  It turned out delicious.  

Firing up the Pit

Our son in college came home for the weekend and we decided to 'kill the fatted calf,' figuratively, of course. Russ really likes brisket, so I told Tricia that I would do a brisket this past weekend in celebration of the visit.  We are planning to round-up the cattle at the farm soon and send a steer to the slaughterhouse. Then we'll have a freezer full of grass fed beef - a goal we've been working towards for a long, long time.

For now though, to get our brisket, I had to make a trip to the store and while I was at the meat counter, I could not find a single whole brisket.  There were only a few small trimmed ones and they were expensive!  Wow - beef prices...  I normally purchase untrimmed brisket and cut off excess fat.  I usually leave some fat on the brisket, but didn't have the opportunity this time.  I purchased two of the trimmed briskets that were available and took them home to prepare them for the barbecue pit the following morning. The first thing I do is prepare a rub for the brisket.  Here is the recipe I use:

• 2 Tablespoons Kosher salt
• 3 Tablespoons Homemade Criolla Sella Ground Pepper
• 1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• 1 Tablespoon Paprika
• 2 teaspoons Dried Oregano Leaves
• 2 teaspoons Granulated Garlic
• 1 teaspoon Ground Cumin

I stir all this together in a bowl.  Then I place the brisket in a Pyrex baking dish and liberally coat the brisket with the rub, ensuring that the seasoning touches every square inch of the meat.  The rub smells fantastic.  I cover the dish with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to allow the flavors to marinate overnight.

Brisket with the rub on it

Here's an admission that will undoubtedly cause my 'Man Card' to be removed from my wallet.  My wife is a better barbecuer than I am.  She is more patient and skilled at the BBQ pit.  There.  I said it.  But I finally have been able to do briskets where the family enjoys them and it is soooo very easy.  Here's what I do: After allowing the brisket to marinate in the fridge overnight with the rub,  I fire up the barbecue pit.  To the side of the briquettes, I lay some pecan sticks that I picked up in the yard and soaked in water.  These will smolder and smoke, giving a nice, sweet, smoky pecan flavoring to the brisket.

While the fire is still burning (before the coals glow), I put the brisket on the grill rack and sear all sides of the meat.  Once the searing is done, I cut back the air flow into the pit AND cut back the chimney smoke way back.  This keeps a lot of the smoke inside the pit and slows down the fire so that you can barbecue/smoke your brisket for a long period of time without having to add more charcoal.

You can see the pecan sticks on the right of the flame

I'll allow this to cook for a while and then I'll flip the brisket over so that the other side is close to the heat. At this point I taste the seasoning that is on the tongs I used to flip the brisket.  Mmmmm-mmm!

The aroma is so tempting.

Now I'll leave the brisket on the pit flipping 2 times total for about 2 and one half hours.  Here's what it looks like when I bring it inside:

Time to bring inside to finish it up

When I bring the brisket inside, I put the oven temperature at 275 Fahrenheit and let the oven get up to temperature.  Then I'll pour 3/4 cups of apple cider vinegar mixed with 3/4 cups water into a baking dish, place the brisket in the baking dish, cover it with aluminum foil and place it in the oven for about four hours.

The house will be smelling so good, you won't know what to do with yourself.  Pull the brisket out of the oven, get a sharp knife, and begin cutting against the grain of the meat.  You'll have a hovering flock of on-lookers at this point who have been drawn to the kitchen by the smell emanating throughout the house.

Notice the pink smoke ring.  That tells you that you have some good smoke flavoring in the meat.  Looking at the brisket, you might think from the black color that it is burnt.  It's not.  In fact the black 'burnt ends' are my favorite part.

Slicing up the brisket

Once it was all sliced, we paired it with some fresh broccoli and carrots from the garden and Tricia made some Mexican rice with chicken hearts from last years' meat birds, some iced tea and a glass of milk.

Ready to eat

No need to ring the dinner bell.  Everyone's here and the feast is ON!